Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Opabinia.

Opabinia was a strange Cambrian arthropod with five eyes, a v-shaped tail, and a long stalk, with jaws and a mouth under its head. It used its long appendage to grab prey. Then it would shove the prey into its circular mouth. The name is pronounced oh-puh-BIN-ee-uh.

Opabinia probably hunted in worm burrows by sticking its long appendage into the burrow, and then pulling out the worm inside. If there was a worm in that burrow. Opabinia was about 3" long.

Opabinia had predators, like Anomalocaris and Sanctacaris. It hunted on the sea floor.

A wild initial hypothesis here might be, somehow, an ancestor's bilateral symmetry was genetically short-circuited (yielding one eye and one appendage where there might have been two) and somehow proved evolutionarily advantageous, if only bcause they required less energy without proving to be a disadvantage (the thing already has four other eyes,and that one appendage may have been stronger, with greater leverage or whatever). But, again, that's me guessing wildly, as it seems more efficient simply to have started with five eyes (which'which is what I'm going to call the hamburger place from now on) and one appendage. It's just, so far as I know, unusual, is all (was there anything else like this?).

It probably needed that many eyes to sense all those monster predators, like Sanctacaris, that 4" long creature with ten feeding appendages, and Anomalocaris, that 6' thing with those two spiky claws and the circular mouth.

Note From the Typist

Art started writing this blog at age seven and completed the majority of the work before he turned nine. He did his own research and for a long time dictated the blog entries to me, his mother. I typed exactly what he said and did my best to spell everything correctly.

For a glimpse into the early blogging process, check out the video below.